LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 






013 702 588 7 



REVIEW 

Qji, and arrange- 

''CIVIL HISTORY OF T ers. So much 

FEDERATE STA-^e't't^blL^ment 

position, the legal 

BY ROBT. sTiLion, SO little to the 

of the Confederate 

-origin of the Confede- 
Not often have a writer so w-^^r history of the 
subject so unknown been brought i^gt character- 
to the subject, it is tei^a incognita to ^ accounted 
even of the best informed, most loyal, airvti, more 
loving sons of the South, while the rest o'l Con- 
world is not more lacking in information th'^" 
interest with regard to it. Indeed, th( 
of the theme n^av be stated yet more stT" 

L. U IM V. :f tji<i) E^ K ^^'^ ^'C 



STATES. 



> > 



BY ROBERT STILES. 



Frorri Religious Herald, 

Rict\ir\orid, Ya. 

1901. 



\ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 702 588 7 



— RlCHMOKX)> 



3IS'0\ 



fl 



REVIEW 

QP and arrange- 

DR. CURRY'S NEW SO^i,%%l%^t 

"CIVIL HISTORY OF T^^^^- ^o much 

FEDERATE STAr'^e'tstabUshment 

position, the legal 

BY ROBO?. STiL ion, SO little to the 

' of the Confederate 

origin of the Confede- 

Not often have a writer so ■vs-.^j. history of the 
subject so unknown been brought i^gt character- 
to the subject, it is terra incognita to ^ accounted 
even of the best informed, most loyal, air>Ti more 
loving sons of the South, while the rest o'l Con- 
world is not more lacking in information than iur\. 
interest with regard to it. Indeed, the deadnesD 
of the theme may be stated yet more strongly. 

"Civil History of the Confederate States"! The 
very collocation of the words strikes the eye and 
the ear as unnatural, meaningless, even false. The 
blood-baptized Confederacy, that died in infancy 
over a generation ago, never breathed the blessed 
breath of peace. Born amid the roar of musketry 
and the thunder of the guns, and dying on the 
stricken field — what history had it apart from red 
battle? What time, what opportunity, what use, 
did it have for any other? 

This is more than a mere rhetorical question. 
Our author himself admits that "there was little 
opportunity or occasion for civic ability." A mo- 
ment's reflection will assure us of the justice of this 
statement. Every department, every agency, every 
power of the government, as well as every resource 
and effort and energy of the people, were strained 
to the utmost, for life. No officer of the govern- 
ment, no citizen of the Confederacy — at least, no 
worthy officer or citizen — even so much as dreamed 
of growth or expansion or development — of wealth 
or prosperity. No; all was absorbed in the con- 
suming earnestness of the struggle for existence — 
the struggle against annihilation. And yet Dr. 
Curry's revelations help us to realize, as we have 
never done before, how this very concentration and 
narrowness of existence in the South during the 
war, while rendering utterly impracticable and out 
of place much of what is ordinarily termed states- 
manship, yet induced a moral elevation, purity, 



\ 



id devotion, almost abnormal, in the 
as the military life and history of the 

THE AUTHOU. 

ttempting any analysis of his book, 
loned for one word about the au- 
both in personality and in his- 
e marked men of our day. He 
a generation enjoyed an excep- 
ntance with the leading men 
jch hemispheres, and has himself 
.id a factor of importance in current 
events. His public life began early, 
.-iiued long, and has embraced an unusually 
scope. Intensely Christian, and at the same 
whe intensely practical, he has lived his life, as 
in these last days he is making record of it, in the 
blended light of both worlds; and one feels that he, 
as much as any public man of our time, has in 
active life applied, as in history he is to-day apply- 
ing, the very highest standards which can be 
brought to bear upon human life and agency. 

I well remember, when, as an aspiring college 
student, I hung over the galleries of the House of 
Representatives at Washington, drinking in the 
great debate which ushered in the end, how my 
pride as a Southern boy was stirred as I gazed 
on two young Southern members, L. Q. C. Lamar 
and J. L. M. Curry. One felt instinctively that 
both were absolutely pure and consecrated; that no 
Northern delegate surpassed, if any equalled, either 
Lamar or Curry in learning, or culture, or general 
ability, and that, in addition to this, they both pos- 
sessed that peculiar and indescribable charm and 
attraction which distinguish the best of our South- 
ern people. More than once, after some able and 
dignified action or utterance of the one or the 
other, I felt almost like rising in my place and 
shouting: "The civilization and social system which 
produce such men can surely need no apology or 
defence." From that day to this, I have never had 
occasion to change my estimate of either of these 
great representative Southerners. All will recog- 
nize Dr. Curry's peculiar fitness to write this par- 
ticular book; indeed, we can scarcely think of any 
worthy substitute for him, either in specific infor- 
mation or general capacity. 



COMPOSITION OF HIS WORK. 

A word now as to the composition and arrange- 
ment of his work. At first blush, just a shade of 
disappointment may be felt at the contents, as indi- 
cated in the headings of the chapters. So much 
space seems to be devoted to foundation, so little 
to superstructure; so much to the establishment 
of the rectitude of the Southern position, the legal 
and moral justification of secession, so little to the 
acts and doings and records of the Confederate 
Government; so much to the origin of the Confede- 
rate States, so little to the after history of the 
Confederacy. In so far as this is a just character- 
ization of Dr. Curry's book, it is to be accounted 
for, in part, at least, by the consideration, more 
than once above referred to — to wit, that the Con- 
federate Government was chiefly, if not alone, con- 
cerned in keeping supplied, meagrely at best, the 
Confederate armies and navies; but there is a 
yet deeper reason for the apparent disproportion 
between the two parts into which the work natu- 
rally divides itself. 

Everything in the subsequent development and 
history of the Southern movement is necessarily 
dependent upon its original character. If secession 
was a groundless recourse of hot-headed, ambitious, 
and unprincipled leaders, then the final outcome, 
indeed the entire story, must be one of shame and 
infamy. It is the one great fact of the civil his- 
tory of the Confederacy that its birth was legiti- 
mate, its origin justifiable and honorable in the 
sight of God and man. Not only is this feature 
fundamental, but it is this intense conviction of 
absolute rectitude at the start which imparted to 
the life of the Confederacy a dignity almost un- 
paralleled, and to its death a pathos altogether un- 
utterable. 

OUTLINE OF THE ARGUMENT FOR SECESSION. 

Let us glance now a little more particularly and 
analytically at this fundamental department of his 
work, which Dr. Curry seems properly to have con- 
ceived of as part of the civil history of the Con- 
federate States. For his past work in this direc- 
tion Dr. Curry is entitled to the undying gratitude 
of the people of the South. In none of his pre- 
vious publications has he placed the Confederate 
South in any mistaken, or humiliating, or apolo- 
getic attitude; but has always rested our cause 



6 



upon a basis which perfectly comported with our 
self-respect. 

But in his present work he has relaid these 
great foundations with the ability and confi- 
dence of a master builder. The first chapter, on 
"The Causes and Right of Secession," covering 
some thirty pages, and the ninth, on "The Legal 
Justification of Secession," covering nearly 100 
pages, are, to my mind, not only unanswerable, but, 
while admitting that to each of us the unprejudiced 
intellect is that whose prejudices most nearly ap- 
proximate our own, yet I cannot forbear saying 
that I believe this latter chapter is well adapted 
to impress and convince any intelligent and fair- 
minded man. At all events, a great and memo- 
rable addition to the literature of the great debate 
has undoubtedly been made in this last contribu- 
tion of Dr. Curry. It almost savors of arrogance 
even to attempt any analysis or abridgment of an 
argument so full of matter and so palpitating with 
power; but, if we may be pardoned for the effort, 
we would say that, in this chapter and throughout 
his book. Dr. Curry has succeeded in doing what, 
in this very work, he has repeatedly said could not 
be done; that is, if he has not transformed his 
reader into a veritable citizen of each of these suc- 
cessive periods, yet he has at least transported him, 
with some appreciative grasp upon the real situ- 
ation and surroundings, i)ack to the era of the 
existence of the separate colonies; thence, down 
the stream of time, to their first gropings towards 
the establishment of fuller and more unfettered com- 
niorf ial relations I'otween themselves; thence to the 
first Confederation, and thence to the "more per- 
fect union" and the adoption of the present Con- 
stitution, the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive 
Slave Law, the Dred Scott decision, the increasing 
sectional bitterness, the election of Lincoln, and 
the secession of the South. 

He has shown, by contemporaneous history and 
the distinct utterances of all parties, at the time 
of and prior to its adoption, that the Constitution 
of the United States was a compact, in which 
the rights of the slave-holding States were 
recognized and conceded upon the one side, in 
consideration of and return for certain guarantees 
demanded by and conceded to the other side. He 
has shown that the parties to this solemn compact, 
upon whose acceptance it was expressly made d<?- 



pendent, and whose ratification alone, in law as 
well as in fact, gave it force and effect, were the 
several States, and not the government nor the 
people of the United States. 

In this connection, it may not be out of place 
to remark that the sentence, "We, the people of the 
United States," etc., with which . the Constitution 
opens — as originally submitted and adopted, read, 
"We, the people of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
New York," etc. — the several States who were the 
real parties to the instrument being named 
seriatim; and that the committee on style and lan- 
guage, which probably had no purpose, and cer- 
tainly had no power, to change the force and 
meaning of the paper, recast the clause in its 
present form, for the sake of brevity, and because 
impracticable to name in advance the States which 
would ratify the Constitution. 

Dr. Curry also develops with great clearness and 
cogency the doctrine of granted and reserved pow- 
ers, and shows that, among the rights re- 
served, by Northern not less distinctly than by 
Southern States, in accepting the Constitution and 
entering the Union, was the right to withdraw 
therefrom and to resume all powers delegated to 
the Federal Government. He comments upon the 
inability or indisposition of the Northern mind — 
in the domain of politics, at least — to grasp the 
distinction between principle and precedent or 
policy, and the consequent ignorance, as well as 
prejudice, touching the questions involved in the 
great sectional controversy. It is this failure to 
perceive or to appreciate, amounting practically, 
at times, to inconceivable ignorance, which made 
the long struggle of the Southern or slave-holding 
States to maintain their constitutional rights in 
the Union so weary and hopeless. In this connec- 
tion. Dr. Curry mentions the astounding fact that 
a well-known writer on "Constitutional and Politi- 
cal History" declares that "the States had no exist- 
ence anterior to the formation of the Constitution"; 
and, perhaps, more amazing still, that both Motley 
and Edward Everett affirm that in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States the States are not named. 

Dr. Curry also exposes the fallacious position 
of Mr. Justice Story, that the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the Articles of Confederation merged 
the separate colonies" into a single nation, and the 
inhabitants thereof into one people. On the con- 



8 



trary, the Articles, upon their very face, and in the 
strongest possible language, negative any such 
construction or conclusion; while the Declaration 
asserts that the colonies had thereby become "free 
and independent States." It may be added that the 
expression, "united States," which occurs, perhaps, 
for the first time in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, so far from being employed as the baptismal 
name of a new nation, is really only an adjective 
or participial phrase descriptive of the then con- 
dition of the States — the word "united" beginning 
with a small "u," and the word "States" with a 
capital "S." 

With great ingenuity and power, Dr. Curry dis- 
sects and destroys what he terms "the favorite 
allegation of Consolidationists, that the Constitu- 
tion and the laws made in pursuance thereof are 
the supreme law of the land." Says our author: 
"No one questions that statement; but * * * 
who is the ultimate arbiter, in case of dangerous 
infractions?" 

We much wish we had space for extended quo- 
tation from this part of Dr. Curry's great argu- 
ment, embracing pages 220-242 of his work; for 
it is impossible that any abstract should convey a 
fair conception of the fulness and accuracy of his 
historical research into everything bearing upon 
the great sectional controversy, his familiar ac- 
quaintance with the prominent actors in it who 
were his cotemporaries, the logical acumen and 
all-compelling force of his reasoning, or the rich- 
ness and charm, the trenchancy and trip-hammer 
power of his style. Especially in his discussion 
of the limitation upon the power of the Supreme 
Court necessarily inhering in our composite system 
of State and Federal governments — covering pages 
220-224 — does he give abundant food for careful 
thought. The pith of the entire argument is that 
the powers reserved by and to the States in the 
Federal Constitution, and especially by the tenth 
amendment thereof, "are not only reserved against 
the Federal Government in whole, but against each 
department — the judicial, as well as the legislative 
and executive; otherwise, the Federal sphere is 
supreme and the spheres of the States are subordi- 
nate." His conclusion, that the "States must de- 
cide" what their undelegated powers are, would 
seem to be unavoidable. 

Finally, Dr. Curry graphically sketches the risQ 



9 



and growth of the anti-South and anti-slavery feel- 
ing and frenzy in the Northern States, illustrating 
it by quotations from party leaders, journals, con- 
ventions, and platforms, and showing that all con- 
stitutional and statutory guarantees of the rights 
of the slave-holding States had come to be abso- 
lutely disregarded, annulled, and even contemned; 
that, in justification of this treasonable attitude, 
there was not even a pretence of a denial of those 
rights, but rather the open invocation of a law 
higher than the Constitution, until at last so com- 
pletely had all sense of the rights of the South 
been obliterated from the Northern mind that, in 
1860, the two Republican candidates for the Presi- 
dency bid for the party nomination by putting forth 
each his own popular catch-word or battle-cry — 
the one, the "irrepressible conflict between free- 
dom and slavery," and the other that "this country 
cannot last half-slave and half-free"; and so utterly 
besotted had the public conscience of the North 
become that no one seemed to be shocked at such 
an exhibition. 

THOMAS K. BEECHEB'S GETTYSBURG SPEECH. 

We know not how better to close our review of 
this part of Dr. Curry's book, than by the follow- 
ing quotation from the memorable speech delivered 
by Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, younger brother of 
Henry Ward, at Gettysburg, on the 3d of July, 
1888, in unveiling a monument to the Brooklyn 
Phalanx. In reciting the fact of secession, and 
the outbreak of war which followed, Mr. Beecher 
said: 

"In 1776, thirteen colonies, by their representa- 
tives in Congress or convention, called 'God to 
witness the rectitude of our (their) intentions,' 
and declared themselves 'free and independent 
States.' 

"In 1787, these free and independent States pro- 
posed a 'more perfect union' in the name of the 
people. 'We, the people,' they said, in their pre- 
amble to the proposed Constitution. But — 

"In the last article of the same Constitution we 
read of 'the States ratifying the same,' as establish- 
ing the Constitution between the States so ratify- 
ing. 

"In 1788, l)y June, the States had so ratified the 
Constitution; and in 1789 an orderly constitutional 



10 



government came into power, George Washington 
its executive. 

"In 1860-'61, four of these very States that had 
formed the Union, with seven other States that had 
been added, assumed to 'retrace their steps and 
cease to be members of the Union. They formed 
or had come into the Union freely, voluntarily; 
they proposed to go out by the same door. * * * 

"Eleven States, acting in an orderly manner, by 
conventions lawfully called, retraced their steps 
with accuracy, and supposed themselves to have 
become once more free and independent. 

"They went on accordingly. The old partner- 
.ship dissolved, they offered to 'divide the effects 
by negotiation.' 

"Now, it happened that certain ports, custom- 
houses, post-offices, and other real estate lay within 
the bounds of these States that supposed them- 
selves once more free and independent. Real estate 
cannot be moved off. The soil remains in its 
place. It must be given over to the State within 
whose bounds it lies or stands. The United States 
officers must cease from function, surrender office, 
title, keys, and cash. 

"This logical demand was made, refused, en- 
forced by arms, resisted, and a great civil war 
began." 

It may not be irrelevant — it certainly cannot 
prove uninteresting — to quote one other brief para- 
graph from this daring and altogether remarkable 
oration. Said Mr. Beecher: 

"One and an ancient form of industrial organ- 
ization has come to an end — chattel slavery. What 
is to take its place does not yet appear. The 
riiftlessness, envy, and even malignity, that pre- 
vail^mong onr laborers in their voluntary servi- 
tude, so-called, chasten the rejoicings of the 
thoughtful over the downfall of responsible, con- 
servative, patriarchal chattel slavery." 

INAUGIIKATIOX OF THE CONFEDERACY. 

Let us now hurriedly review the brief, but pa- 
thetic, records of the civil government of the Con- 
federate States, as Dr. Curry has recited them for 
us in his invaluable book, all too brief in this 
department of it. 

Beginning with the Convention of Delegates from 
six States, called to organize first a provisional 
and then a permanent government, we are struck 



II 



by the simplicity and rapidity with which momen- 
tous events succeed each other, when men are 
energized and consecrated by a great crisis, and 
thinlv only of what they are doing, and not of how 
they appear; when the stage strut is solemnized out 
of them and the elaborate scenery and trappings 
of the theatre are forgotten. 

The Convention met in Montgomery, Ala., on the 
4th of February, 1861, and elected Howell Cobb, 
of Georgia, chairman. On the 9th, a provisional 
Constitution was adopted, a President and Vice- 
President of the Confederacy elected — each State 
casting one vote — and a committee appointed to 
prepare a permanent Constitution. On the 11th, 
Mr. Stephens accepted the Vice-Presidency; on the 
15th, Mr. Davis arrived from Mississippi, where he 
had been organizing State troops; on the 18th, he 
was inaugurated, and very shortly thereafter an- 
nounced his Cabinet. On th-e 26th, the Committee 
on Permanent Constitution brought in their report; 
by the 11th of March debate upon it was concluded 
and the permanent Constitution adopted. 

Mr. Davis had not sought the Presidency. Dr. 
Curry says the qualifications and claims of Toombs 
and Cobb were quietly canvassed; they each had 
ardent supporters, but the rivalry was not pressed 
far enough to cause any ill feeling or delay. Mr. 
Davis, being notified of his election, promptly ac- 
cepted the grave responsibility. "His inaugural," 
says Dr. Curry, "was marked by simplicity, direct- 
ness, and frankness, * * * and expressed iiji 
strongest terms the wish of the country for peace." 
His entire conduct and bearing seem to have been 
characterized by a dignity and decision that well 
befitted the solemnity of the crisis. His firm, strong 
hand appeared in everything. 

I may be pardoned for interpolating a very singu- 
lar and striking confirmation of the choice of the 
Convention for President of the Confederacy. The 
Rev. Joseph Cook, author of the Boston Monday 
Lectures, was my fellow-student at Yale, before the 
war. He was then a somewhat unpolished NeW 
England youth, but perhaps the most majestic and 
forceful young man I ever met. His anti-slavery 
convictions were conscientious and strong, and as 
the great crisis came on, his excitement rose higher 
and higher, until finally he' broke away from college 
and went to Washington; and there, such was his 
impressiveness of appearance and bearing, his in- 



12 



tellectual force and brilliance, that, without letters 
of introduction, he gained audience with all the 
prominent actors in the great drama. 1 remember 
that he was grievously disappointed in Mr. Seward, 
saying that he either failed to grasp the moral 
significance of the situation or else, for purposes 
of what he considered pardonable state-craft, pur- 
posely belittled it. But he openly pronounced Jef- 
ferson Davis the greatest man he had met, de- 
claring that no other was his superior in general 
ability, and none his equal in appreciation of the 
gravity and solemnity of the crisis, in sincerity, in 
depth of conviction, in unselfish consecration to 
what he considered his duty. I remember that, 
in his impulsive and impressive way. Cook said, 
substantially: "I have heard one truly great 
speech; I have met one truly great man; I have 
seen Saul. Jefferson Davis to-day towers among 
his fellow-congressmen, taller than any of the peo- 
ple from his shoulders and upward." 

THE PROVISIONAy, COXGRES.S. 

Dr. Curry speaks in the highest terms of the 
composition of the Confederate Congress, record- 
ing the statement of Vice-President Stephens that 
he had never been a member of an al)ler body. He 
mentions their dignity and harmony and modera- 
tion, their appreciation of the grave responsibility 
resting upon them, the absence of excitement and 
bitterness. He gives graphic pen sketches of the 
leaders — Stephens, Toombs, the Cobbs, Memminger, 
Benjamin, and others. He emphasizes their desire 
for peace, and speaks strongly of the utter unpre- 
paredness of the South for war. In another part 
of his work, he takes up formally the extravagant 
■■slander upon President Buchanan's administration, 
and particularly upon Secretary Floyd, in the 
widely current story of "the stolen arms"; that is, 
the alleged filling of Southern arsenals with gov- 
ernment arms, preparatory to the secession of the 
Southern States. This absurd slander he utterly 
xefutes by the most overwhelming evidence. 

He calls attention to the fatt that the provisional 
Constitution ordained that immediate steps be 
taken for the settlement of all matters between the 
Confederate and the United States "in relation to 
the property and public debt at the time of with- 
drawal, ♦ • * these States hereby declaring it 
to be their wish and earnest desire to adjust every- 



13 



thing pertaining to the common property, common 
liabilities, and common obligations upon the princi- 
ples of right, justice, equity, and good faith." The 
Congress without delay passed the legislation re- 
quired to carry this provision into effect, and the 
President promptly appointed the requisite Com- 
mission. It was this Commission which Mr. Seward 
subsequently treated with such discourtesy and 
duplicity. 

Dr. Curry insists that the permanent Constitu- 
tion adopted by the Confederate Congress, and the 
entire course of their early legislation, evidenced 
their high appreciation of — indeed, their reverent 
attachment to— the Constitution and laws of the 
United States, while profoundly realizing that the 
Union had become a gross perversion of the Con- 
stitution. In this regard, as in others, the perma- 
nent Constitution speaks for itself, while "the very 
first enactment after the adoption of the provisional 
Constitution was the continuance in force, until 
altered or repealed, of all laws of the United States 
not inconsistent with the laws of the Confederate 
States." Indeed, there seems to have been no en- 
actment of the provisional Congress but exhibited 
the desire and purpose of separating peaceably 
from the non-slaveholding States, and establishing 
relations of equality and amity with those with 
whom organic union was no longer practicable. 

THE PERMANENT CONSTITUTION. 

Obviously, the permanent Constitution was the 
principal work of the provisional Congress, next 
after setting afoot the Confederate Government; 
and in nothing was the conservat?"e spirit which 
inspired the South, Congress ant people, more 
clearly and strongly manifest. ^i e permanent 
Constitution of the Confederacy adoj^ ^d, not alone 
all the great fundamental principles nd features 
of the Constitution of the United States, but also 
all, or nearly all, of its practical provisions, except 
where it was thought experience had developed 
some imperfection, or suggested amendment, alter- 
ation, or repeal. 

On pages 274 to 304 of his present work, Dr. 
Curry, for convenience of comparison, has printed 
the two Constitutions in parallel columns; but he 
does not in this book, as he did on pages 192 to 
213 of a former work, "The Southern States of the 
American Union," enter upon a full analysis and 



14 



comparison of their provisions. However, in Chap- 
ter III. of the present worl< will be found a very 
interesting anil suggestive discussion of the points 
in which the Confederate Constitution is differen- 
tiated from that of the United States, and upon 
pages 65 and 92-3 succinct and admirable state- 
ments of its most important features. 

PROVISIONS AS TO TIIK EXECUTIVE. 

In further specification, it may be remarked that 
the Southern Constitution-makers sought earnestly, 
b'jt in the main unsuccessfully, to correct the evils 
which had crept into the election of President; or, 
rather, the utter perversion of the original design 
of the Electoral College. They were more success- 
ful, however, at other points. 
• The tenure of the presidential office was fixed 
at six years, and the President made ineligible for 
a second term. Dr. Curry remarks that President 
Hayes, when asked at the close of his term to 
suggest necessary amendments to the Constitution 
of the United States, mentioned only these two. 

Executive patronage was attempted to be con- 
trolled by limiting the power of the President to 
appoint to and remove from office. Except in case 
of Cabinet oflficers or those in the diplomatic ser- 
vice, he could remove only for cause, and that 
cause must be reported to the Senate. 

With a view of fostering sympathetic inter- 
course, preventing and removing friction, and pro- 
moting efficient co-operation between the executive 
and legislative departments of the Government, the 
Confederate Constitution adopted in modified form 
one of the features of the British Constitution; 
that is, it allowed the Executive, through his con- 
stitutional or Ca1)inet officers, a seat upon the floor 
of Congress, with the privilege of discussing any 
matters pertaining to their respective departments. 

0UAI5DIN0 AOAINST I'OIJUUPTIOX PliOVlUlNG FOIt 

ECONOMY Ol- AUMIXISTRATION. 

The Confederate Constitution cut up by the roots 
the policy of "protection," by denying to Congress 
the right to levy or collect taxes, duties, imposts, 
and excises, except for the purpose of discharging 
debts and carrying on the government. The right 
to make appropriations for any internal improve- 
ment, even to facilitate commerce, was also denied, 



15 

except for the purpose of furnishing lights, hea- 
cons, buoys, and other aids to navigation, and the 
improvement of harbors and navigable rivers; and 
the cost and expense of even these objects must be 
paid by duties upon the navigation thus facilitated. 

The "general welfare" clause, the wide-open door 
to corruption and plundering of the treasury, was 
also closed. A stop was put to the abuse of the 
"franliing privilege," by a provision that, "after 
the 1st of March, 1863, the expense of the Post- 
Office Department should be paid out of its own 
revenues." 

To prevent "log rolling," and by this means the 
fastening upon the treasury of wasteful and perni- 
cious schemes, which would stand no chance of pass- 
ing either house, if each stood exclusively upon its 
own merits, it was provided, in substance, that, ex- 
cept upon the estimate and request of the heads 
of departments, through the President, Congress 
could mal^e no appropriation without a vote of two- 
thirds of both houses, fallen by yeas and nays. 
The President was also authorized to veto particu- 
lar clauses in appropriation bills, and the initiative 
in disbursing revenues was placed largely in his 
hands. The Treasury was also required to publish 
at stated periods its receipts and disbursements, by 
items. 

It is easy to see how, by these and other similar 
provisions, were barred out class legislation, un- 
just discriminations, sectional advantages, subsi- 
dies, bounties, partnership with corporations, 
trusts, "vast plutocratic combinations of corporate 
wealth," and the long catalogue of dire evils, flow- 
ing from a full treasury and demoralizing appro- 
priations from it, with which the people of the 
United States have in these latter days unhappily 
grown so familiar. It is easy, we say, to see how 
economy and honesty of administration were likely 
to be thus secured; but whether, under such a Con- 
stitution and such a system, a country would be 
likely to enter upon such a rush of material de- 
velopment as that by which the United States have 
astounded the world, may well be questioned. 

Changes were also made in reference to amend- 
ments, admission of new States, bankruptcy laws, 
jurisdiction of federal courts, citizenship, territo- 
ries, alien suffrage, and the choice of senators. 



16 



SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRAPE. 

Provision was, of course, made for the protec- 
tion of property in slaves; but, so far was it from 
being true, as charged by a prominent writer, that 
"the reopening of the slave trade was a recognized 
feature of the scheme of the leaders of the Con- 
federacy," or that the framers of the Confederate 
Constitution were "conspirators, overthrowing the 
Constitution of the United States, and erecting a 
great slave oligarchy," that Dr. Curry says: "Speak- 
ing for the Confederate Congress, I wish to testify 
in the most explicit manner that no proposition 
was made in that body to open or connive at the 
slave trade, nor did a single member favor such 
an infamous scheme." Upon this subject both the 
. provisional and permanent Constitutions of the 
Confederate States contained the most explicit and 
emphatic provisions, both having passed by unani- 
mous vote, and that of the permanent Constitution 
being in the following words: "The importation 
of negroes of the African race, from any foreign 
country other than the slave-holding States or Ter- 
ritories of the United States of America, is hereby 
forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such 
laws as shall effectually prevent the same." 

It is easy to trace the origin of almost every one 
of the above changes, and it would seem equally 
easy to see — indeed, impossible that a candid mind 
should fail to see — that they are the work of expe- 
rienced and able men, honestly striving to guard 
against the defects, imperfections, and abuses from 
which their constituents had suffered in the Uniop 
and under the Constitution of the United States; 
and we cannot but agree with Dr. Curry that the 
condition of the country to-day furnishes impres- 
sive confirmation of the wisdom of many, if not 
most, of the changes introduced by the Confederate 
Constitution-makers. In short, after reading this 
third chapter of Dr. Curry's book, the reader will 
be ready to concur in the opinion of Vice-President 
Stephens, that the permanent Constitution of the 
Confederate States was not only a monument of 
the wisdom, forecast, and statesmanshii) of those 
who constructed it, but an everlastinr; refutation 
of the charges which have been l)rought against 
them; and in the judgment and prediction of Dr. 
Curry, also, that this instrument, when prejudices 
shall have subsided, will be regarded as a great 



17 



and memorable contribution to the science of gov- 
ernment. 

Yes! this Constitution, product of the first few 
and the only peaceful days of the Confederacy, 
constitutes a solid demonstration of the statesman- 
ship of the Confederate leaders, who, alas! had 
little opportunity for further demonstration. After 
the storm burst, the condition of the country 
afforded little room for statesmanship. 

DESPERATE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. 

Belted with bayonets, blockaded by fleets, pierced 
and divided by gunboats and invading columns, 
devastated by armies, plundered by marauding 
bands, laid waste by fire and sword, her cities shud- 
dering with the boom of cannon, her fields tram- 
pled by the tread of legions — in short, life re- 
duced almost to the simple conditions of savagery — 
there was little left in the South for a man of 
spirit, or blood, or breeding to do but to eat — if, 
perchance, he could procure food — and having fed, 
to fight. And this all men did, save a few of the 
very old and fewer still of the very young. The 
farmer left his crops, the merchant his store, the 
lawyer his clients, the doctor his patients, the pas- 
tor his flock; nay, even the bishop dolfed his robes 
and donned his armor. The very officers of gov- 
ernment, . State and federal, deserted their posts 
and flew to the front. Members of State Assem- 
blies and of the Congress — Dr. Curry himself 
among the later — abandoned the halls of legisla- 
tion. Cabinet officers dropped their portfolios, and 
even the very President of the Confederacy chafed 
under his confinement and champed the bit that 
held him back. 

In gleaning the scant civil records of these tense 
and terrible days and years, we cannot do better 
than glance over the headings of Dr. Curry's chap- 
ters, from the fourth to the eighth. 

The action of President Lincoln in calling for 
volunteers, the similar conditions yet contrasted 
conduct of the several border States, the episode of 
the Peace Congress, the lofty choice of Virginia and 
her heroism in baring her breast to the onset, the 
gallant courage of the Confederate Government in 
leaping to her side and planting its flag and its 
capital in the position thus opened nearest to the 
foe, the heritage of imperishable glory thereby 
flooding this devoted and historic city — all these 



18 



are indeed superb themes, but comparatively fa- 
miliar. 

Dr. Curry tells us that, of revenue, in the ordi- 
nary sense of that term, there was almost none; 
certainly but a fraction of what was needed for 
the equipment and maintenance of the army and 
navy. The blockade very naturally reduced cus- 
toms duties to a grim farce, and, in the opinion of 
intelligent foreigners, contributed, perhaps more 
than any other one cause, to the depreciation of 
the currency and our ultimate defeat. 

Able to get nothing from without, the supply 
of the army required almost everything within 
our own borders, and everything — food products, 
horses, mules, and even slaves to work on fortifi- 
cations — had, of course, in the general, to be col- 
lected by the harsh method of impressment; yet our 
people patiently endured it all. Because of the 
utter inadequacy of the currency and of every 
scheme, expedient, and device for extending and 
supporting it, resort was necessarily had to a direct 
tax ill. kind, and our author gives a pathetic flash- 
light revelation of the extremity of our destitution, 
when he tells us that "the farmer or planter was 
allowed to retain fifty bushels of sweet and Irish 
potatoes, one hundred bushels of corn, or fifty bush- 
els of wheat, twenty bushels of peas or beans, and 
a certain amount for raising hogs." 

As illustrative of the numberless ways in which 
this destitution was felt. Dr. Curry mentions the 
fact that paper could with diflficulty be procured 
even for the transaction of these simple financial 
operations of the CJovernment, which reminds me 
of one of the inimitable, boyish pranks of the idol- 
ized commander of our cavalry corps, General "Jeb" 
Stuart, whom I saw steal and carry off from 
General Lee's headquarters, where I had been sent 
with a message, a large quantity of fine writing 
paper, which had just been received through the 
blockade. I recall the nodding of his black plume 
and the merry twinkle of his blue eyes as they 
opened wide in admiration of the paper, which he 
proceeded at once to stow away in the legs of his 
big cavalry boots and the capacious bosom of his 
flannel shirt, keeping meanwhile his broad back to 
the adjutant-general of the army, who at the mo- 
ment was busy dictating to a clerk. I remember, 
too, the peculiar unction and fervor of his good-by 
to Colonel Taylor as be left the tent, so stuffed with 



19 

his plunder that he had to be boosted and hoisted 
on to his horse by a couple of his couriers. 

COTTON AND THE BLOCKADE. 

There was but one point of power, one ray of 
hope, in all the dark and darkening prospect. If 
there was any truth and power in the slogan of the 
sanguine, "Cotton is king," then it might well be 
that our federated republic, under the banner and 
leadership of this mighty sovereign, should take 
its place among the nations of the world. I be- 
lieve there was truth and power in it; I believe 
cotton was king; but the graphic alliteration cred- 
ited to the brilliant Alabamian, William L. Yan- 
cey — who, by the way, must have uttered it, if at 
all, after his return from Europe — gives the whole 
situation in a nutshell and touches the weak and 
sore spot: "If cotton be king, he is a monarch 
cabinned, cribbed, confined." He was certainly a 
monarch shut off from his throne, barred out of 
his proper dominions. 

The blockade did it; the blockade was the mighty 
serpent that wound itself about us, shutting out 
what we wanted in, and shutting in what we wanted 
out, till, in its tightening coil, we starved and 
choked and gasped and died. It is a marvellous, 
a well-nigh incredible story, in every aspect exag- 
gerated, almost unearthly. So great was the peril, 
so dazzling the prize, that the most renowned ships 
and seamen of the world engaged in the wild game 
of blockade-running; one, at least, of world-wide 
reputation, Hobart Pasha, who had been an admiral 
in command of a great European fleet. So much 
for tie awful power and effect, the intoxicating 
hazard and romance, of the blockade. 

As to the power of cotton. Dr. Curry graphically 
depicts what dire distress the absence of it effected 
in the manufacturing districts of Great Britain, 
and how for a time it dominated the public senti- 
ment of the British nation. If the lack of it accom- 
plished so much, what would the supply of it, 
through our hands and under our control, have 
accomplished? If our cotton loan and cotton bonds 
stood for a time at a premium in the markets of 
Europe, notwithstanding the chances against our 
success, what would the cotton itself have brought, 
if, as Dr. Curry says, we could only have gotten it 
out and across the water and stored somewhere, 
for use by our able and experienced commissioners 



20 



in securing recognition and material aid? But we 
never did and never could accomplish this, and, as 
our author tells us, that portion of our cotton 
which was not captured by the enemy or burned 
by our own people to prevent it falling into their 
hands, during the war, remained to the close, to 
be then consumed in the final conflagration, or to 
enrich the bummers and hangers-on of the Federal 
armies, as they swarmed over the almost swoon- 
ing body of the prostrate South, in the spring and 
early summer of 1865. 

FOKEION UKI.ATIONS — FEDEItAL DITLICITV. 

As to our foreign relations — we never had any. 
It is pitiable, even humiliating, to note how our 
accredited envoys sneaked across the water from 
Northern ports, or dashed through the blockade at 
the peril of their lives, or were dragged like pirates 
or fleeing criminals from under the protection even 
of the Union .Jack of England. 

Although it is generally felt that Mr. Lincoln 
himself cannot be entirely cleared from the charge 
of insincerity and double dealing, in his several 
interviews with the commissioners from the South, 
yet it is a relief to the writer personally that Dr. 
Curry treats rather of the duplicity of Seward. 
Cold-ljlooded, cunning, crafty, cruel, treacherous, 
Mr. Seward has always been to me the most objec- 
tionable and repulsive of all the advisers of Mr. 
Lincoln. I i)referred even Secretary Stanton him- 
self; for there was about him, at times, the real 
heat of genuine passion, and 1 have myself known 
of his doing imi)ulsive and manly and generous 
things. If William H. Seward was ever charged 
with or convicted of anything of the kind, I, at 
least, have never heard of it. Certainly, in the 
light of the revelations of Dr. Curry's book and of 
the documentary history of what occurred between 
Judge Campbell and Mr. Seward, to which our 
author refers and from which he freely quotes, it 
cannot be questioned but that Dr. Curry is justly 
entitled to his chapter heading, "The Duplicity of 
Seward"; nor that Judge Campbell was fully au- 
thorized to write, as he did, to Mr. Seward: "The 
commissioners who received these communications 
concliule they have been abused and overreached. 
The Montgomery Government hold the same opin- 
ion * * * "; nor that President Davis was au- 
thorized to say, as he" did say to the Confederate 



21 

Congress: "The crooked paths of diplomacy can 
furnish no example so wanting in courtesy, in can- 
dor in directness, as was the course of the United 
States Government towards our commissioners in 
Washington." 

There are other topics treated of in Dr. Lurry s 
valuable book; for instance, the unanimity and 
enthusiasm of the Southern people at the outset 
of the great struggle and their devoted courage to 
the end, the peculiar devotion of our women, a 
comparison of the armies and resources of the 
North and of the South, religion in our camps, 
privation at our homes, the strong individuality 
of the several States, and other kindred topics. 
But while certainly not lacking in interest, this is 
all more or less familiar ground, and will be passed 
by with the assurance that these portions of the 
work will well repay perusal. 

STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION AND FINANCIAL AID. 

We desire to call attention to but one additional 
feature, already briefly alluded to, which really 
afforded almost the only field for even so much as 
an effort at statesmanship. We refer to the struggle 
of the rival envoys of the Confederate States and the 
United States in the markets and the courts of 
Europe — the one party striving to secure, the other 
to defeat, a loan to the Confederate Government; 
the one to compel, the other to prevent, the recog- 
nition of the Confederacy. 

The personnel of these commissions is interest- 
ing Dr. Curry mentions, on the side of the United 
States, Robert C. Winthrop, Edward Everett, J. P. 
Kennedy, Archbishop Hughes, Bishop Mcllwaine, 
William M. Evarts, Henry Ward Beecher, and Thur- 
low Weed; upon the Southern side, James M. Mason, 
John Slidell, L. Q. C. Lamar, William L. Yancey, 
A P Rost A. D. Mann, and Duncan F. Kenner. 
They were 'not all appointed at the same time, nor 
with the same powers, and some of them, particu- 
larly upon the Northern side, declined to accept. 
The struggle was close and tense, as well in the 
markets of the world as in the salons and offices 
of the diplomats. A full revelation of all that oc- 
curred would constitute a thrilling story. Charles 
Francis Adams was at the time Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary from the United States to the Court of St. 
James with good reason honored with the entire 
confidence of his Government, whose envoys were 



22 



instructed not to interfere in any way with the 
Minister. 

As before intimated, it affords the strongest evi- 
dence of the dominating influence of cotton that, 
despite the best efforts of the emissaries of the 
United States to prevent, embarrass, and depre- 
ciate the Confederate loan, our cotton bonds were 
rated for quite a long period at a premium of 5 
per cent. 

Nor was the contest for recognition any less close 
and exciting. Both Great Britain and France actu- 
ally recognized the belligerent rights of the Con- 
federate Government, and both were for many 
months on the very point of full recognition of the 
independence of the Confederacy. Perhaps the 
strongest demonstration cited by Dr. Curry of the 
intensity of the struggle is that it determined the 
attitude of the United States toward the treaty of 
Paris. That Government had originally, in 1856, 
declined to sign the convention, because unwilling 
to give up privateering, which it abolished. Mr. 
Adams indicating that his Government was now 
ready to sign. Earl Russell insisted upon the inser- 
tion in its acceptance of a clause providing that 
"the convention should have no bearing, direct or 
indirect, upon the internal difficulties now prevail- 
ing in the United States." The whole object of the 
Washington Government, says Dr. Curry, in becom- 
ing at that late date a party to the Declaration of 
1S5G, being to call on Great Britain and the other 
treaty powers to help suppress Confederate priva- 
teering, the United States refused to accede to Lord 
Russell's requirement, and to this day this country 
has never become a party to the Declaration of 
1856. The Doctor adds, what is perhaps still more 
interesting and impressive, that the Confederate 
Government accepted four articles of the Paris Con- 
vention — declining, however, to surrender privateer- 
ing — and thus, as Mr. Blaine said, actually "became 
a party to an international compact." 

As Dr. Curry does not to any considerable extent 
specify the parts taken by the individual commis- 
sioners, or their relative weight and influence in 
bringing about the result — especially not as to those 
from the United States — a single suggestion in this 
direction may be pardoned. While it has been gene- 
rally understood that most of these appointments 
were made by the State Department, Mr. Beecher 
has always been considered the special selection 



23 



and appointee for this service of Mr. Lincoln, who 
was accustomed openly to speak of the great pulpit 
orator and platform speaker as "the foremost citi- 
zen of the republic." Beecher's public speeches in 
Great Britain, in advocacy of the cause of the 
Union and in resistance of the almost overwhelm- 
ing popular demand for the recognition of the 
Confederacy, have generally been regarded as the 
most remarkable platform efforts of this remark- 
able man; indeed, as, perhaps, the most impas- 
sioned and irresistible harangues ever heard in 
any country since the great campaign of Peter the 
Hermit. It has always been the personal belief 
of the writer that our failure to secure the full 
recognition of the Confederacy by the British Gov- 
ernment was due more to the efforts of Henry Ward 
Beecher than to those of all the balance of the 
envoys, emissaries, and commissioners of the 
United States combined. 

CONCLUSION. 

The brief, sad story is told — much of it for the 
first time. It is not perceived how any fair-minded 
man can rise from the perusal of it with the im- 
pression that the Confederate leaders were "con- 
spirators, attempting to overthrow the Constitution 
of the United States and to erect a great slave 
oligarchy," or that the Southern people were de- 
luded, and either led or driven by these ambitious 
and unprincipled men into "insurrection," or "re- 
bellion," or into a war in which they felt no real, 
original interest. Nay, it is not perceived how the 
candid reader can fail, from a careful reading of 
Dr. Curry's book, to receive impressions and form 
convictions the very reverse of these, even though 
his preconceived opinions may have been of the 
general character first indicated. 

For my own part, and especially as a Confederate 
soldier, I feel impelled to return my hearty thanks 
to Dr. Curry for his revelations — albeit not so full 
in some departments as I, perhaps without good 
reason, had anticipated — of the life and history, the 
inspiring motives, the governing principles, the ulti- 
mate views and purposes, of the civil Government 
of the Confederate States, and its deadly struggle 
against the irresistible powers and prejudices 
arrayed against it — phases of the great conflict to 
which, in our heedless, happy youth, we paid but 




24 



little attention, and as to which we then hart no 
opportunity of informing ourselves. 

In those halcyon days, when life was sweet and 
seemed to be of priceless worth, I unhesitatingly 
pledged it, with all my heart and soul, to the cause 
of the South; while thousands of glorious youth — 
my companions, yet far above me in aspiration and 
talent and character and promise — actually yielded 
up their lives in bloody, but unavailing, sacrifice 
upon the same devouring and insatiable altar. In 
those grand days, we knew full well the purity and 
intensity, the loftiness and devotion, of the soldier 
life of the Confederacy. Rut to-day, not far from 
the end, the hot heart-throbs of youth long past, and 
the slow-beating, cautious, calculating pulses of age 
having taken their place, it is a deep, calm joy to 
have the curtain drawn aside from the "Civil His- 
tory of the Confederate States" — an image and pre- 
sentment we have never before seen — to gaze upon 
the pure, still features, and to feel a new and deeper 
assurance that our beloved was all, and even more 
than all, she seemed to us in youth to be. 

Nor do we comprehend how any right-minded 
Northern man can take exception to such feelings 
and expressions upon our part. Many a noble wo- 
man, second wife of a noble man, when asked her 
preference as to the portrait of her whoso place she 
has taken, whether it should l)e removed or carried 
to some iess public part of the house, has replied, 
not without a kindling protest of gentle indigna- 
tion: "No. no! If untrue to her to-day in memory, 
you could not be true to me in actual presence. 
Let her remain where she is; not hidden in some 
closet, where you could go, in secret and apart from 
me, to worship and to weep. Here, in open day, 
in our own room, or in the best room in the house, 
is the place for the woman who had the good 
sense and the true heart to love you then as 1 do 
now. and to whom you gave your golden youth as 
you are giving to me your maturer years." 

Richmond. Va 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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